please help a Newbie Author

[Joesephus]

I have dozens of questions, but I try to limit this to my big two.

1. Why can't I login?

I'm a poor college student and I don't own a computer. Can't you hear the violins? The school computers block the site. My friend's computer uses DSL from Verizon, but I will time out if I try to login. (It will also time out if I try to go to the forums, vote on a story, see page 2+ (about 1/4 the time) and generally limits the use of the site (oh and I can't email authors and talk about their stories--my biggest complain.

Okay my biggest complaint was that I couldn't post.

Using my limited, very limited funds (more violins please) I signed up with a dial-up ISP. (They're giving me the 1st month for $.99 but after that, it goes up to $5.50. I can buy a whole bottle of cheap 20% alcohol Port for that)

Where was I? Oh, from the dial up line every thing works fine. Any Idea what I can do?

2. What is a fairly normal ratio of emails/PC per views on a story? As a student, I expect grades, and votes are fine. However, I also expect my papers to come back covered in red ink. I need that red ink to improve my English.

I don't know how many views my first story received, but I've gotten over 50 votes (and only 2 one-bombs) and only received 1 email and 4 Public Comments. Is this normal or are folks holding back because this is my first posting here?

Thanks for any and all help and advice.

 

[English Lady]

Hello and welcome


Technical questions go right over my head, I'm sorry -but any others I'm happy to try and help you with

your votes, PC's and Emails seem about right. On a regular submission (that sounds kinky doesn't it?) I'd get about 4 or 5 PCs if I'm lucky and maybe 2 or 3 email feedbacks. It's only if I join in on the seasonal competitions that I get much more than that.

So it sounds like you're on your way and once again, welcome to the AH

 

[TheEarl]

Joesephus,

I'd recommend seeing if you can find an internet cafe. They're getting quite cheap where I am, so hopefully not too bad near you. Either that or get a money jar and see if you can't save up for a second-hand laptop.

As for constructive criticism, your best bet is to go to the Story Discussion Circle on these forums. If you contribute and edit other peoples', then you can put a story into the pot to be reviewed, pored over and ripped apart for the viewing pleasure of the masses. Your ego will be thoroughly mauled at the end of it, but you will be a better writer for it.

Welcome to the AH and good luck with your internetting trouble.

The Earl

 

[Alex De Kok]

Hard to say, really. Get used to a very poor votes/views ratio. 1% is excellent! Feedback is sparse. Treasure what you get. I've been here a good while, and I may have picked up a following, certainly I get a few comments from the same people on my stories.

Your Christmas story and my third (!) Christmas story both debuted in the 'New' list today. You have a slight advantage in that yours is first on the page. As of two minutes ago, I'd received 51 votes, 2 PCs and no emails, so you're doing slightly better than me. I checked your score and that's higher too, dammit!

Alex

 

[NoJo]

I have dozens of questions, but I try to limit this to my big two.

1. Why can't I login?

I'm a poor college student and I don't own a computer. Can't you hear the violins? The school computers block the site. My friend's computer uses DSL from Verizon, but I will time out if I try to login. (It will also time out if I try to go to the forums, vote on a story, see page 2+ (about 1/4 the time) and generally limits the use of the site (oh and I can't email authors and talk about their stories--my biggest complain.

Okay my biggest complaint was that I couldn't post.

Using my limited, very limited funds (more violins please) I signed up with a dial-up ISP. (They're giving me the 1st month for $.99 but after that, it goes up to $5.50. I can buy a whole bottle of cheap 20% alcohol Port for that)

Where was I? Oh, from the dial up line every thing works fine. Any Idea what I can do?

2. What is a fairly normal ratio of emails/PC per views on a story? As a student, I expect grades, and votes are fine. However, I also expect my papers to come back covered in red ink. I need that red ink to improve my English.

I don't know how many views my first story received, but I've gotten over 50 votes (and only 2 one-bombs) and only received 1 email and 4 Public Comments. Is this normal or are folks holding back because this is my first posting here?

Thanks for any and all help and advice.

On the technical side, the DSL problem is probably connected with the way your web browser sessions are working -- cookies are most likely diaabled in the browser, so the Lit site is trying to maintain session information and failing, because the browser is not sending the same IP address each time it connects. Try enabling cookies on the browser.

50 votes is a lot. Jolly good. Stop fussing.

 

[Joesephus]

Your Christmas story and my third (!) Christmas story both debuted in the 'New' list today. You have a slight advantage in that yours is first on the page. As of two minutes ago, I'd received 51 votes, 2 PCs and no emails, so you're doing slightly better than me. I checked your score and that's higher too, dammit!

Alex

I new here and haven't perturbed anyone yet. Thus I've only gotten two one-bombs (thus far), I think that's the term. I'm trying to monitor carefully and based on the ratings, two voters have given me 1s. Reading another thread, I think that's the correct term.

I'm sure as I stick around others will hate something I said and take it as their mission in life to lower my scores. I know that on the other site I post to, I can expect one fellow to post the lowest possible vote thee times as soon as he sees one of my stories. I don't know how he manages to vote three times but it's regular as clockwork.

Thanks for the insight, I seen authors here say things like I got 58 story suggestions and had hoped that there would be more feedback.

If anyone has any idea about question 1 I'd love to hear it. My friend doesn't mind me using the computer, but tying up the phone line is a cardinal sin

 

[Joesephus]

On the technical side, the DSL problem is probably connected with the way your web browser sessions are working -- cookies are most likely diaabled in the browser, so the Lit site is trying to maintain session information and failing, because the browser is not sending the same IP address each time it connects. Try enabling cookies on the browser.

50 votes is a lot. Jolly good. Stop fussing.

Oh I'm not fussing about the votes, I just hoped for more, and more detailed feedback. I think I'll need to go to the other forum someone mentioned to get what I'm looking for.

On the DSL, we tried three different browsers (IE, Netscape, and Firefox) all accepting cookies. We tried dual sessions, we turned off the modem to force a different IP address, we literally tried at every hour of the day. (We're college kids we keep strange hours.) None of that made any difference.

The only idea we had was that Verizon might be blocked by Lit or its servers. We know that emails sent via Verizon are blocked by some ISPs in Germany. It looked like we could see some general public stuff but nothing else.

The final kicker was that we couldn't even go to the store. The link always, every time gave us a timed out.

Any other suggestions will be gratefully followed.

 

[Carmenica Diaz]

Oh I'm not fussing about the votes, I just hoped for more, and more detailed feedback.

At the end of the day, the best feedback is that readers choose to read your stories.

 

[Joesephus]

At the end of the day, the best feedback is that readers choose to read your stories.

Of course that is the kick that I get from posting to site like this. The idea that others are reading and enjoying my little daydreams. Still, since this is the first story I've posted here, I just have to hope that most who decided to check me out haven't lost their breakfast after reading my little tale.